


The Way We Were

by orionCipher



Series: IgNoct Week 2017 [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 03:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11660586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orionCipher/pseuds/orionCipher
Summary: Day 1Situational: Taking care of each other





	1. Succour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis Takes a spill

It’s the height of summer in Lucis and Noctis is running like The Six are personally coming for him, tearing through the garden with the speed and veracity only found in the very young, and has been doing so for nearly three hours. Ignis, crystal preserve him, is exhausted just watching him, sweat staining his shirt and wilting the starch from his collar. But the princeling, for all his running, is still laughing madly, sweat soaked hair plastered to the round, soft edges of his face. It’s the first time he’s been so excited in a long while, and it’s honestly a relief to the ennui he normally manifests.  


As they totter closer and closer to the third solid hour, Noctis takes to spinning dizzily around a fountain, feet clacking on the cobblestones, and stumbles over an uneven patch, skidding across the path. Ignis is at his side in the span of a breath, fretting quietly while Noctis stares on with wide eyes.  


“Are you alright, prince Noctis?”  


“I fell.”  


“Does anything hurt?”  


Noctis just shrugs. Ignis has him standing before he notices the tear in his pants and the blood trickling down his knee, and barely keeps himself from starting at the sight. If he panics Noctis will panic, and the last thing anyone needs is a crying four year old. So, with cultured care, Ignis kneels slowly to inspect the wound before asking, “Does this hurt?”  


His charge just shrugs again. It’s a pretty clean cut – no visible dirt or rocks sticking in it, and the bleeding has even begun slowing, so Ignis brushes off the little debris on Noctis’ pants and takes him inside. He washes it, sterilizes “with nosting!” and carefully applies a cartoon chocobo plaster, “Green! Greengreengreen!” He’s just about to send Noctis off for a change of pants when he feels the tug on his sleeve.  


“Kiss better?”  


Ah.  


“Of course.”  


So he takes a knee and presses his lips on the wound, just like his mother had used to do for him.  


“All better?”  


“All better!”


	2. Soporific

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis has a bad dream

Ever since the attack when he was eight Noctis has had problems sleeping – nightmares, insomnia, night terrors that drag him out of bed wailing – and tonight is no different. Ignis falls out of bed to the sound of Noctis screaming like he’s dying, and maybe he is. He’s thrashing wildly, surprising given his current physical state, and screaming his throat raw.

“Highness!”

Shaking him’s not working, “Wake up!”

But all he gets are more screams.

“Wake up, highness! You’re safe!”

It seems to do the trick.

Voice scratchy and breaking, the little prince sobs ,“I want Iggy!” Iggy Iggy Iggy, but he’s right here, clutching him like a lifeline.

“I’m here Noct, I’m right here.”

The guards had been alerted probably as long as Ignis had been up, but he just sways with his prince, an anchor in this storm until he’s cried himself half back asleep.

Ignis is ready to sleep on his feet, but, priorities. He’d felt it when he’d first sat down; Noctis had wet the bed.

He hadn’t done that in years, not since before his bed-sheets were chicabos in adventuring outfits, since before just seeing a snake in the garden had him in tears. It’s not like an eleven year old would have been any help against Marilith, but Ignis couldn’t help but think ‘if only.’

But ‘if only’ was for waking hours. Right now it was time for a shower and a change of sheets, so he frog-walked the sleepy princeling to the bathroom and rang for the maids after he’d gotten him disrobed and under the warm spray. The shower seemed to help calm him some, so Ignis toweled his hair down and wrapped him in his favourite hooded chicabo towel and walked him back to bed - now fitted in still warm golden cactaur sheets – and got him in new jammies. Clean and tucked in Ignis clicked off the bedside lamp that the staff had left on and made to leave only to be stopped by a tiny “Iggy?”

He turned back.

“Read me a bedtime story?” Noctis asked with a still wobbly voice. Ignis smiled, coming back to the bed and turning the light back on.

“Of course. Which one would you like to hear?”

Noctis flips down a corner of his duvet and scoots over. “Thundersnail?”

Smile broadening, Ignis takes the proper volume from the bookshelf and flips to the right story.

“Once upon a time,” he starts, sliding in next to Noctis, “In a faraway land filled with magic and dreams…”

He’s almost hit the climax when his voice starts to taper off, and partway through the final battle his head drifts and his struggle to keep his eyes open is lost. Noctis very gently hooks a finger under a lens and tugs the glasses free, careful to fold them proper, and rests them on his nightstand where they are soon joined by the heavy book of fairy tales. He tugs the fluffy duvet over Ignis and nestles close.

Everything is better when Ignis is near, he thinks dozily, especially naps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that was an Undertale reference.


End file.
